


A Seasonal Peace

by Zabeta



Series: Follow Me [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A wild trope appears (tomboy gets dressed for a ball), American Revolution, And she'll be into him eventually, British Empire, F/M, Ghosts, I went to the Revolutionary War museum a year ago and it's still feeding this fic, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Rey finds a teacher and he's kind of into her., Rey needs a teacher., So CAUTION if you are sensitive to teacher/student relationships., StateraTriumVerse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21948361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zabeta/pseuds/Zabeta
Summary: After the British occupy Philadelphia in September, 1777, Kylo Ren and his Knights find themselves without portfolio. In spite of attempts to avoid and then escape the city of his birth, Kylo finds himself a prisoner to the seasonal peace. What will he find to occupy himself?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Follow Me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580284
Comments: 21
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HarpiaHarpyja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/gifts).



> A gift for the marvelous [HarpiaHarpyja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja), who gave me two incredibly precious gifts this year: kind words for [Follow Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479667/chapters/48595919) and an invitation to beta her [Vespertine.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21254480/chapters/50606288) She could not have known how good her timing was both times. She mentioned an interest in the further exploits of these Knights of Ren, and here they are, only eight weeks later.
> 
> Four chapters in, I think this makes sense if you haven't read [Follow Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479667/chapters/48595919), but you might want to check that out first - it's not long. The TL;DR is that Rey's and Kylo's paths crossed one night in summer of 1777. Kylo and his Knights are mercenaries currently cooperating with the British forces, who occupied Philadelphia shortly after our rivals' meeting. Rey currently lives in the city in the household of Mrs. Organa-Solo, a supporter of the Revolution.
> 
> Rating for later chapters. Safely teen for now, but tags will update as needed.

Kylo Ren was woolgathering, gazing out the window as the snow fell into the darkened street below. He had laughed out loud into the empty room just the moment before, and a bit of that smile lingered, forgotten, in one corner of his mouth while the memory that had affected him played out.

Tambiya Ren, looking mystified, had been explaining how a gang of neighborhood children followed him around for two days. “ _Ado!”_ he had exclaimed. “They are looking as frightened by this as usual,” he gestured to his heavily muscled chest, “but every time I turn around there are more of them!”

Tambiya and the other Knights had been huddled around an open fire behind the stable where they were quartered. The glow burnished the Tamil giant’s features from below, turning his thick eyebrows into fearsome shadows. He brushed back his drooping mustache and shook his head at the mystery, and Arief Ren had pointed and shouted “ _Swartze Piet_!” in a cascade of booming laughter.

“What’s that?” Tambiya demanded, but Arief was laughing too hard to answer, and Kylo was left to explain.

 _“Swartze Piet_ \- Black Peter - he travels with _Sinterklaas_. The Dutch families believe he kidnaps bad children, but maybe they thought they could trick you into leading them to the gifts.”

They had all laughed then, but Kylo recognized the incident as another sign that he would need to find a better winter station for his Knights. There was no hiding them, even in cosmopolitan Philadelphia. They had stripped their black battle dress of the most gruesome accessories when they followed the British into the City late in the fall, washed months of rough living from their clothes and hair, but they still stood out among the colonials. They moved like the warriors they were, bearing their tattoos and scars with a defiant pride that Kylo cherished. He could not ask them to stop being what they were, but he knew the colonials would need stories to explain the Knights’ strangeness, and he had no doubt that his official colleagues would not approve the stories he wanted told about them.

The Knights of Ren must be feared to be effective, and that made them an inconvenience to the red-coated fops giving orders. The Crown wanted to maintain the illusion that their soldiers were gentlemen forced to fight, happier here in the City dancing and drinking tea all winter. He supposed that story might be necessary to win the peace, but the end of the war was years away and no concern of his. 

He needed a temporary respite for them - a winter mission far away from Pennsylvania. The Knights of Ren would be away on another continent before this war ended, wherever their skills could earn the most - whether in glory or money or, in Kylo’s case, knowledge. But even one winter’s peace was taxing; he recognized the signs of boredom and knew what came next. Sending them away now would avoid bloodshed and worse.

He had seen them onto a ship to the Indies a week after that night, charging Niu Ren with bringing them all back in fighting shape by the following spring. Kylo didn’t pretend to give them orders. Niu was a good judge of men, and he would either keep them together or replace anyone lost with another man eager to fight.

Part of him had longed to go with his Knights, to escape the suffocating sense of wrongness that went with being in the city where Ben Solo had been born. He was as bored and restless as any of his men, and the ever present danger of running into someone who might recognize him and make the connection between Kylo Ren and Ben Solo was exhausting.

Alone at the frosted window, Kylo Ren’s thoughts drifted from that recent night around the fire to another one months before. From his tent in the back country, Kylo had watched Tambiya tell a story from his family’s legends, about a young goddess named Meenakshi. The maiden led her father’s army, and she had famously killed the god Shiva with her bow and arrow before bringing him back to life and marrying him.

Tambiya, the youngest of many sons, had been trained as a dancer before he outgrew his other brothers by several inches and several stone. Now he used his grace and balance to wield a deadly double-headed axe, but he was a dancer still. With widened eyes and fluttering lashes he became a shy virgin, his hands bloomed into a flower she admired, her bow and deadly arrows were all but visible between the graceful arcs of his arms.

In his empty room, Kylo barked another laugh, remembering his men’s favorite part of that particular story. It seemed the lovely Meenakshi was born with three perfect breasts, one of which would disappear when she met the man she was to marry. His Knights asked Tambiya to describe those breasts over and over, and Tambiya had responded with lavish, mouth-watering detail.

Kylo’s memory of Tambiya’s gestures drifted into another image, another girl tramping through the forest, fierce and strong. She wore a silver tunic, or maybe it was a homespun shirt, worn thin so the light shone through. Her breasts, however many there were, were bound tight. Her eyes, resolute, refused to flutter or look away. She dropped her bow to her side as Kylo kept her there in his imagination, slid the arrow back into its quiver, and lifted her hand to him, palm up, waiting.

He thought about causing his imagined goddess to raise her hands further while he stripped off that faded linen and unwound her bindings, but she would not budge. She waited with her hand out, one eyebrow lifting as he struggled to take back control of his own daydream. With a final huff of laughter he brought his eyes back into focus and made himself see the falling snow again, the empty street, the churchyard beyond. Even the ghosts slept, and he decided to follow their lead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it just me, or do they always keep meeting like this, alone [in the woods](https://open.spotify.com/track/1bqrRn1pJWowNLA5N9L6uW)?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd, because I have no self control.

The snow was still on the ground when he saw the girl in the flesh a few days later. 

He had a regular ride out of the city that kept Silencer fit and helped to shorten the long days of inaction. It took him cross country for several miles, avoiding the deepest ruts of frozen mud that would have slowed them to a walk. But that day, the icy wind swept over the fields and he turned instead into an oak grove a little way from his usual path. 

The woods were winter bare, and nothing moved on the ground around him. High in the trees, he could see an occasional flash of red or brown among the branches as some brave bird foraged. Balls of faded leaves perched here and there, nests where squirrels slept out the winter. 

Bringing his gaze down from the treetops, he pulled Silencer to a sudden stop. Where no one had been the moment before, someone stood. They looked up into a tree, following the progress of another figure climbing high up the broad trunk.

The figure on the ground turned to look at him, and Kylo went still. For a moment he thought he must have slipped into a dream, because his warrior stood there, shining under the overcast sky as if she carried the sun inside her. She did not seem surprised to see him, but she turned to face him fully with a fierce stance while he dismounted. He could feel her scrutiny on his skin as she scoured his face, his figure, his horse and the air around him for something. But her look softened as he came nearer, and he dared to walk right up to her, until she was close enough that he could have touched her if she were alive.

“You,” he breathed.

She gave him a gentle smile and reached for him, brushing airy fingers over his cheek. He could hardly feel the caress, but he knew the spirit cherished him. He brought his hand to his face in wonder and studied her face in turn, looking for some resemblance to anyone he knew. He wanted to ask her why she protected him, who she was, why he in his darkness could see her at all. But before he could open his mouth, she began to fade away. In a moment he was alone again, with a thousand unanswered questions.

He roared his frustration into the sky before remembering the second figure, the climber his warrior had been watching. She clung to a branch above him, looking down at him in terror.

“What are you doing up there?”

She didn’t answer.

“Gathering more herbs for your poisons, Hedgewitch?” 

“You saw Rosamund.”

“I did.”

“No, I mean you saw her that night on the ridge. She called you to us, like she did just now.”

“Did she?”

“She wasn’t here when I climbed up. I heard your horse, and when I looked down, she was there waiting for you.” The girl spoke slowly, as if she were working something out.

“Who is she?” Kylo broke in to her musings, impatient for answers. “What does she know of me?”

“She’s Rosamund. And she knows you are Kylo Ren. That’s all she’s ever told me.”

“Didn’t you ask?”

“Ask her about you? Why would I…?”

“No, didn’t you ask her who she was?”

“Oh, I never needed to ask. I just knew. She’s my guardian angel? She was a sort of Knight when she lived, and a pilgrim, but that was years and years ago.”

Kylo was developing a crick in his neck from looking up, and his frustration with the girl’s nonsensical answers was beginning to heat his temper. “Get down here, would you?”

“What? No!” Her eyes were wide with terror again, and she shifted her weight to reach for the next branch up.

He reached his hand toward her and curled his fingers slightly, and the branch she was standing on popped and began to sag.

She lurched forward to lean into the trunk again, and looked down at him with fury in her eyes.

“I could do worse, and you know it. Now climb down like a good girl before I lose any more of my patience.”

She just stared at him, eyes narrow and teeth bared, and he reached his hand out again.

“Don’t!” she yelled. “I’m coming.”

He expected her to work her way back down the trunk, but she stepped out onto the weakened branch instead, and dropped. She caught the branch with both hands and looked for a safe spot to land before releasing her hold and dropping the last twenty feet to land on all fours, silent as a cat. She came up with a knife in her hand, ready to defend herself.

“I am no threat,” he soothed, raising both hands by his shoulders.

“Last time…”

He knew she was remembering his threat as she left him to wait for his Knights. He had thought about the same moment scores of times since, but while he could remember the precise color of her parted lips inches from his face, and the feeling of her throat moving in fear beneath his hands, he had no memory of the fury that had made him lash out as he had. She had treated a bullet wound in his side - in spite of seeing him murder a dozen men, in spite of his chasing her down and attacking her - and he had thanked her by threatening to destroy her if they met again. 

He felt an uncomfortable sinking sensation in his chest that he recognized after a moment as shame. When had he last felt that?

“Last time I was feverish and exhausted and I beg your pardon for my rank ingratitude.” He punctuated his words with a small, formal bow, before looking at the girl again with real pleading in his eyes. “I really have no wish to harm you right now.”

“Right now?”   
  


“Today at least. I can’t predict how I’ll feel tomorrow. A tiger doesn’t change its stripes, Madam.” He gave her a charming, self-deprecating smile, but he could see she was confused. She relaxed her stance but stood her ground.

She was dressed in buckskin and homespun, greens and browns faded and worn so that she blended in with the woods around her. He thought it was the perfect contrast to the spots of color on her cheeks and her ferocious hazel eyes. She was lithe and strong, and though her shapeless waistcoat hid most of her torso, her leather breeches clung to hips that were unmistakably feminine. 

He had so many questions for this girl, and his body was coming up with a few more while he stood there admiring her. But he was still thinking back to that morning she had tended him when he asked, “You never found him?”

She hadn’t followed his train of thought, and it took her a moment to figure out what he wanted to know. Her wary expression went still and cold. “Master Skywalker? I found him.”

Her expression changed again, now a bitter twist of a smile that looked wrong on her open face. “He said I was better off not knowing more. He didn’t want to spoil my natural balance.” She blinked and the light caught on tears wetting her eyelashes. “It was fine. For the best. I’ve taught myself everything else I know...”

Kylo felt an unexpectedly powerful wave of anger wash over him at her words. “He’s a fool. Your potential is boundless. I could teach you…” He was nearly as surprised as she was by the words coming out of his mouth. 

What business did he have teaching anyone? Let alone someone steeped in the light? But Skywalker’s stubborn insistence on naive goodness always infuriated him, and the girl standing in front of him practically sparked with power. Light or dark, he wanted to watch her seize hold of it and bend it with those capable hands. He felt his body heating at the thought.

Her expression had turned to doubt, and as she didn’t answer, he began to flush with a different emotion - a feeling of vulnerability. It would hurt him if she rejected his offer. The realization startled him.

He could almost feel her desperation to learn, but she was no doubt weighing the threat and the risk. He began to weigh those realities himself, and his blood ran cold when he remembered that this girl worked for Leia Organa-Solo. He was beginning to hope that she would say no when her expression hardened again with disgust.

“I have no wish to learn from that ghost who teaches you. Rosamund told he me he was not with you today, but if he is your teacher then you must pass on his ideas. And in any case, you are my enemy. We are at war?” She raised the tone of the last word as if it were a question, but she was angry and offended and the words snapped from her lips.

“Ah, you have that look in your eyes. From that morning on the ridge.” He found he adored that look, and a reckless urge to see it again overcame his fears. He needed her to agree to let him teach her.

“It will be a long boring winter stuck in the City, pretending not to be at war. What if we declare a Christmas  _ pax _ , a truce?” he proposed. She still looked wary.

“You have my word that Snoke will not join us if you do not want him.”

“Why would you do that?”

He knew that she expected selfishness from him, and his offer had indeed been entirely selfish, but it took him a moment to think of an answer that wouldn’t send her running. “Rosamund. I need to know more about why she shows herself to me. I will teach you if you answer my questions about her.”

She nodded slowly, thinking. “I think we can do that.” He could see her curiosity rising. Her body, which had been frozen in place since she remembered Snoke, was still tense, but he could see her breath quicken and a brightness - almost a smile - returned to her face. She was so eager to learn.

“Tomorrow is Christmas day - can you meet in the early morning?” When she nodded he went on. “Let’s say twelve days of peace. On Twelfth Night we can go back to being enemies.”

He held out his hand to seal the deal, but she just looked at it, then looked at him again with the raised eyebrow he had imagined in his daydreams. “We are still enemies today, Sir TIger.”

“Very well,” he smiled, pleased that her eagerness to learn did not interfere with her sense of self-preservation. “Dawn tomorrow.” He mounted Silencer and wheeled around to face her. “There’s a burial ground on Arch Street at Fifth. Do you know it?” When she nodded he tipped his hat and gathered up the reins to urge Silencer forward, then stopped and turned back to her again.

“What were you doing up in that tree, anyway?”

“I came out for Christmas greenery. This is the best spot I know for mistletoe.” She pointed up and he saw a clump of shiny green leaves a dozen feet beyond the branch where he had stopped her.

Without another word he extended his arm again, pinching his fingers together quickly. The entire ball of mistletoe fell to the ground at her feet, and she looked up at him with her perfect lips shaping an “O” of shock.

“Get home safely,” he nodded. He carried the pleasure of her surprise with him as he urged Silencer into a trot again.


	3. In Leaves No Steps Had Trodden Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has second thoughts, but lessons begin nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we go. The last two "chapters" were me playing with an idea...then I resolved to draft the rest before I posted any more. But writing time is so scarce, and there are things about these chapters that I really want to share! There are more things about these chapters I am still not happy with. Every day is an act of faith though, now, so why not jump into this void as well? It's a much more entertaining void, in any event.

By habit, Kylo Ren was a man of action. The prospect of something to plan and execute nudged him out of the metaphorical trough where he’d spent the last six purposeless weeks. The faded woods around him seemed brighter as he made his way back to the road, and he inhaled the sharp air like a tonic. He began to work out the best way to pass on what he knew, breaking it down into lessons the girl might be able to master during their short truce, absorbed as much by the intellectual challenge as the thought of his pupil’s face turned up to him in rapt attention.

As he came into the Northern Liberties, the smell of commerce began to seep into the clean, cold air around him and the memory of that pair of fine eyes began to fade. The putrid stench of a tannery wafted by, mercifully chased by wood smoke and the slightly less disgusting smell of a smithy, molten iron and burnt hooves. With the change, he felt doubt rising again, accompanying the thought that this might not have been one of his better ideas.

The doubt itself made him scowl in frustration. It came to him how strange his encounter with the girl truly was. It had taken hard, painful training to school his mind into firmness. Decisive speed and unflinching commitment to his battle plans kept him and his men alive. He had not felt doubt in his own decisions in years. But it was something worse than doubt, something like vulnerability, that made him physically uncomfortable now. He felt it as a wavering in the pit of his stomach and an enervating discomfort in his shoulders.

He knew what he felt, but couldn’t pinpoint the cause, and began to tug at each unfamiliar thread to seek its source.

He no longer feared the girl was the sort of subtle spy who could successfully lie about what she knew of him. He had been certain that she was exactly that when he chased her off that summer morning, but he felt no deception now. Her bitterness about Skywalker’s failure had been immediate and unguarded, and the eagerness to learn that he had felt bubbling under her doubts would have been very hard to feign.

He remembered how it felt to wait for her to accept his offer, but shied away from quickly, skipping ahead to the reasons for her caution, her reluctance to encounter Snoke. Unease rose again in his stomach. It may have been foolishly overconfident to promise to keep Snoke out of their lessons, as if the spirit were his to control.

She had said Rosamund told her Snoke was not with him. Was it odd that Snoke had never noted Rosamund? Before that night on the ridge, Kylo believed she must be his own invention, a sign of lingering weakness and some childish desire for comfort and succor. Even after, he had not been sure. His encounter with her above the swampy meadow was fever-filtered in his memory, shimmery and vague.

Now, considering how to keep Snoke away from the girl, he realized how strange it was that his teacher had never seemed aware of Rosamund, who was evidently very real - or at least a fantasy shared with one other Ghostseeker. But if she were real,  _ what _ was she? Not simply the girl’s guardian ghost, to come to him unbidden, always to relieve him of pain.

This time, though, she had left him discomfited. There was a spot on his cheek that burned, the line where Rosamund’s airy fingers brushed his face burned; the irritation a reminder that he must  _ know more _ . Unsettling emotions aside, training the girl was the only course he cared to take.

Resolute again, he returned to planning his course of instruction.

## \---------

There was no real reason to meet in a burial ground. Ghosts were thick on the ground in the city, even one as young as Philadelphia. But he had wanted a bit of privacy and quiet - their first lesson would require the girl to concentrate and he strongly suspected she would be more at ease outdoors.

Wisps of luminous mist flirted at the edges of his vision, the graveyard’s resident ghosts. He had never had to learn how to see ghosts; the crucial first lesson for him had been how to ignore them. As a child, he wondered why he and others like him were called Ghostseekers, when ghosts seemed to clamor for his attention all the time. In fact, the burial ground was quieter than many other places. Ghosts that lingered in graveyards had found some measure of peace. If a ghost had haunting to do, it was more often closer to where the ghost had lived or died, not where its body lay. 

That was the second reason he had chosen this spot; less chance of stumbling across something malignant.

He let himself in through the lychgate and saw a shift in the darkness where the girl stepped out from behind a tree. He crossed to her and without speaking gestured for her to follow him further in, away from the walls. Early as it was, early risers would be about soon, and Kylo preferred not to waste his morning making up excuses if they were discovered.

When they were in a suitable spot, he stopped and turned to her. He could not see her features in the pre-dawn darkness, but he could feel her emotions - wariness, anxiety, a thread of something like guilt, but about what he could not tell.

“Will you take my hand now?” He half whispered, pitching his voice low.

“Is it necessary?”

“It’s polite.”

She rolled her eyes but took his hand. Through his gloves he could feel how cold her bare hand was, and how hard with muscle. She pulled away before he was ready to let her go.

“You’ll need gloves.”

“What for? I’ve done well enough without them this long.”

“You haven’t done what we’re about to do, either. But it’s no matter to me.” He gestured around them. “Do you see ghosts here?”

“Of course.”

“Can you feel them? If you shut your eyes?”

“I can hear them,” she offered, unsure what he meant.

“That’s not what I asked. Can you feel them?”

She closed her eyes and scowled in concentration, and Kylo settled in for a long wait. Sooner than he expected, her scowl smoothed out, her shoulders dropped, and her breathing deepened. An expression of surprise marked the moment she felt something new, and then other emotions chased across her face as the ghosts around them flowed into her newly opened mind.

“That’s enough now. Come back to me.”

“Oh.” She opened her eyes and gulped for air as if she had been deep in a pool of water. “They’re so...so loud inside my head!”

“You found them astonishingly quickly. They are louder to you now, but you will learn to quiet them when you need to - or want to. Could you tell the difference between the ghosts and me?”   
  
“Yes! I didn’t think about what that was, but I felt something different, something...that was you? You are more...vivid, I suppose, with a thrum to you. The ghosts are a...thinner energy...like pure emotion.”

“Right. Again.” He watched her face closely. For all her strength, her sensitivity meant that she could be easily overwhelmed. She moved quickly into the calm space where she could sense the living and the dead around her. He felt a sparkling, fizzing buzz in his head as she reached out to him, and held himself still, open to her seeking but with a veil over his thoughts. She would not yet be able to read him, but he did not need her coming across stray bits of information by chance.

She explored for several minutes while he watched her. The rosy dawn light gilded her skin, catching on her cheekbones and the delicate wings of her eyebrows. Her lips stretched and curved into a delighted smile, an expression she had never let him see before. A few moments longer, and she came back to herself. When she opened her eyes this time, she was completely in control. Her wide smile lingered.

“What did you find out there?”

“Nothing new - nothing I haven’t seen or heard before. But I can go so far! I can feel the sexton moving around in the church across the way, and both of his predecessors. They are buried there, but they follow him around as if it were still their job. There are two little children’s ghosts in a house by the river, watching their brothers sleep. And...” she mused over something a moment, before she put a name to what else she had sensed. “So much life, too. I didn’t know I could do that - sense the living? Do you do that?”

“At times. Though it was never as easy for me as it seems to be for you.” He frowned, wondering for a moment whether there was any danger in trying to teach someone whose skills were so different than his own. 

‘How do you move things?” She clenched her hand in a fair imitation of his gesture. “The mistletoe? And there are stories about trees and rocks…”

“It’s the same energy you’re learning to sense. I’m not sure you’ll be ready for it in a week.”

“Show me again.” She looked hungry, determined to  _ figure it out _ if he refused to explain.

“No. I don’t think I can trust you not to harm yourself.”

She looked mutinous, her eyes narrowing as she prepared to bite out a response, but before she could Kylo looked at the brightening sky and said, “I think that’s the first lesson, then. Practice and tell me tomorrow what else you learn.” A twist of humor flashed briefly across his face with his words, as he thought about the types of things she was likely to learn in a city full of idle soldiers. He relented a little, “We will get there, to moving things, if you practice.” 

She nodded, releasing whatever she had been about to say with a sigh. 

“My turn then.” It was a statement, but he waited for Rey’s nod before he asked his questions.

“How long has she been with you?”

“She says all my life, but I’ve only seen her since this summer, that night you…I think you must have seen her before I did, actually.”

“Long before,” he said under his breath.

“I’m sorry?” she asked.

“You said she was a Knight, and a pilgrim? But do you know why she is your guardian? Usually a guardian was someone close to you, related by blood or some other ties of the heart. How is she connected to you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really think she is. My mother, when she still showed herself to me…”

“She doesn’t now?”

“Sometimes, but not as often. SInce I returned to the city she’s hardly there at all. But I was going to say that my mother’s ghost seemed to need something from me - she needed me to be safe, to know she loved me. When she saw that I could keep myself safe she didn’t need to be there anymore. Rosamund feels different. She needs me to be stronger, to be braver, but I don’t know why. I don’t think it’s for my own sake. She is waiting for something...” 

The girl studied his face for a moment, “Or someone.”

## \----------

The attic bedroom she shared with Rose and Kay was unusually quiet that Christmas night, with most of the household away at festivities Rey had no energy to attend. 

Setting her candle down on the washstand, she laid across her narrow bed and watched the shadows flicker across the slanted underside of the roof. She reached out as Kylo Ren had shown her, but felt almost nothing, and what she did feel was muffled, indistinct. She closed her eyes, took one deep breath as Rosamund was always urging her to do, and tried again. 

It was like coming up for air after swimming under the surface. There was even a little popping sensation in her ears, then what had been muffled the moment before was clear and sharp. She felt the ghosts in the house, the ones she had learned to recognize by sight in the past four months. There was a devoted pair who called each other by odd names - Bail and Breha she thought she had heard - and the man who came and went but was always with Mrs. Solo when he appeared. She felt Mrs. Kalonia preparing for bed, and a little further, a different kind of warm energy that she thought might be Falcon and Bonny Boy in their stalls. She thought about going further, pursuing the fainter threads beyond the stables, but she was exhausted in a way she had never been before, and her ferocious will to learn deserted her.

She let her mind drift, instead, and heard a faint thread of song. The sweet sound grew louder as if the singer was coming closer, and Rey knew that Rosamund was there. The words were not quite English, but Rey had always understood them - an old, old song about Adam tasting the fruit of knowledge, and how long he lay imprisoned for that sin, but also how there would be no salvation for his descendents if he had not given in to temptation.

Rey listened and found herself in the space between alertness and dreaming, where her thoughts of virtue and sin became images of candle light and winter dark, Rosamund’s silver tunic and Kylo Ren’s black linen neckcloth, honey brown eyes surrounded by smears of soot and beargrease.

The song ended, and Rosamund was quiet but still there beside her.

“Is it dangerous?” Rey asked her companion. “To learn from him?”

Rosamund shook her head and smiled reassuringly. “What danger do you fear?”

Rey thought of the sublime sight of the man on the horse calling down the killing ghosts; the horrible twisted features of his Snoke; a wide, strong-fingered hand on her throat; menacing words. She thought of his tiger’s smile and mocking bow. What did Rey fear, really?

“Becoming like him. And Snoke - I fear that thing. You do, too.”

“I am wary of it, but I do not fear it. But is it Snoke that you fear? Or the boy’s power? Because it is yours, too.”

“The boy?” Rey turned a puzzled face to the spirit beside her. “You mean Kylo Ren. I don’t mean his power itself. I mean him - will his evil...his darkness, will he teach it to me?”

But Rosamund was silent, and Rey realized that she had spoken too quickly, because the idea that she shared something with Kylo Ren did scare her. She could not call it power, yet. But if she saw the world as he did, understood the forces flowing around her as he did, then she must be like him already.

## \---------

Kylo had settled for the winter in a high narrow house on the western edge of the city, a few blocks from Silencer’s stables. Suitable quarters were almost impossible to find that winter at any price, and the rooms were cramped. The noisy living and restless dead crowded close around him, but money bought him some separation from the living and the dead responded to his curt command to be still.

Christmas night felt longer than usual and sleep was still far off. He was restless and irritated with himself. He could not settle to anything, but wandered in and out of each of the house’s five rooms as if something might appear in one of them to hold his interest. Images of the girl learning kept popping into his head if he stopped moving or doing, and those images made him uneasy. The open trunk at the foot of his bed snagged his attention, drawing his anxiety into a tight point as he remembered the night he had decided to stay in the city.

He had agreed to risk a short visit to find Skywalker in Philadelphia soon after the British occupied it. When it became clear that he was not there, that the girl had failed to bring him back, Kylo returned to his lodgings only to find Snoke waiting for him.

_ “Well?” it had demanded. _

_ “I’ve requested redeployment south.” _

_ “You are running from a challenge, boy.” _

_ “What challenge? Skywalker isn’t here. We’re better off decamping to Charleston or Savannah. The Knights…” _

_ “You are afraid. Afraid to face your mother.” _

_ “Of course not. You taught me how to deal with those people years ago…” _

_ “And yet you shy from this challenge, to own who you really are - here, in the birthplace of Ben Solo. You and I could be masters here, in this city and all the vast reaches of land behind us. Riches beyond anything you’ve ever seen or dreamed of.” _

_ “I care nothing for riches. Or land.” _

_ “Then you’re a fool, my Lord Vader.”  _

Months later, Kylo could still feel the exact spot behind his eyes that began to throb with those words, and the pain only grew worse as he prepared to leave in defiance of Snoke’s wishes. He had drifted from the slicing pain into a half-waking nightmare anticipating some nameless terror. Rosamund waited for him just on the other side of wakefulness, and her hand on his brow finally pushed back the terrible pressure and allowed him to sink beyond dreams and into real rest.

He woke knowing that he needed to stay in the city until he understood how and why she appeared to him. If Snoke concluded that the pain had persuaded him, so much the better.

His focus shifted to his face reflected in the window pane, and he reflexively looked to see if Snoke was there in his usual place, just behind and a little above him. It occurred to him that he had not been left alone like this of an evening for months, maybe years, and with that thought, it appeared.

It came with a whiff of sulphur and an acrid, oily aura that Kylo could feel coating his skin. He shuddered at the unpleasantness before his mind calmed under the influence of its familiarity. The scarred, misshapen face that faded into view above his reflection stretched its lips into something that passed for a smile.

“You called?”

“Time passes slowly here, without the Knights. I just found myself wondering where you were.”

“You are bored because you have not been focused on your task. What else occupies you?”

“Why don’t you know?”

“Yes, why don’t I? Your thoughts have lost their transparency. There are few things that can permanently break your ties to me beside death, but several that could interrupt it. Have you been consorting with angels?”

Kylo laughed, “Not that I’m aware of.”

Snoke looked at him critically, and Kylo felt the creeping probe of the spirit in his thoughts. “You have not. I would know. Some other profound change of heart would do it. Are you in love then? Have you seen your father’s ghost? Or has your mother found some other way to sink in her claws?”

Kylo chose to focus on one of these questions. “Is his ghost here then? I would have thought he’d have stayed at sea, as much as he loved to wander.”

“Apparently he loved your mother more, or has unfinished business with her in any case. He is here.”

## \-------

Leia woke into the darkness of her curtained bed but did not move, unwilling to pull herself any further away from her dream than she had to. She could still feel the terror of being onboard a ship under fire, but also the satisfying sense of wholeness that came with fighting beside Han, pistols drawn, yelling overlapping commands to their crew. 

She had these dreams often, and could not call them nightmares. Han used to laugh about his Pirate Queen, but since he had gone there was no one who knew that girl, and precious few who even knew she had existed. She had become staid Mrs. Solo in everyone’s eyes, and it was only ever in dreams like this that she could remember and mourn her lost self.

She had been nineteen when she met Han, twenty-two when she chose house and family over a life at Han’s side. They had both been delighted to play house, thrilled to welcome their first child so soon after the wedding (and Providence be praised for that little miracle. Lord knew they had reason to fear that first-born a lot sooner). Their decisions hardly felt like choices at the time, but each step took Leia further away from the branching path. When Han returned to his smuggling after a few years, she had been in no position to join him, and soon they were miles and decades away from whoever else they might have been to each other, or to themselves.

She had these moments of melancholy for her lost self, but never indulged in the what-ifs that might logically follow. What if she hadn’t resented Ben’s existence at times, in spite of her inexorable love for him? What if she had known that Han could never give up smuggling, not for good? What if she had argued more strenuously for Luke to own his inheritance and rewrite their father’s legacy before it was handed down, whole and unaltered, to her son? All of those questions depended on other people’s choices, and what use was second guessing? 

The feelings from the dream dissipated and Leia reached over to twitch aside the curtains surrounding her bed in order to see whether dawn approached. No light in the sky yet, but footsteps somewhere in the house, and then the back door unlatched and quietly shut again. Leia rose to look out over the yard and stables in time to see Rey departing through the back gate on foot. An early errand, unusual even for the diligent girl who never seemed to be still. 

What would her life have been like if she had spent the time to learn what came so naturally to this young woman? Would she ever have worn her powers with that unconscious grace? Leia laughed off the sharp prick of envy and instead offered a prayer of thanks for the girl who fell into her household last spring like a missing puzzle piece. She made a note to ask her about her excursions, and to find time to counsel the younger woman on the best path for those all-too-capable feet.


	4. Then Took the Other, as Just as Fair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second thoughts, alarming developments, and a capital error on the part of Kylo Ren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren and Rey don't start out as teacher and student and (spoiler alert), they won't end up there, either. But in the middle here, anyone sensitive to the combination of a teacher/student dynamic with a romantic one may need to wave off. No smut in this chapter, though! And pains will be taken to make any future smut as consensual as possible.

Rey sat at a worktable lit by the bright winter sunshine streaming through tall windows in the front room of Alderaan House. Usually Rose or Kay would be nearby to take advantage of the same light, but she had the room to herself that morning.

Mrs. Solo’s workshop had been turning out black market goods in the name of patriotism for several years, long before the Occupation. Her late husband’s first mate helped her to sell or trade everything, and brought her materials to make more, whatever he could lay his hands on. Everyone in the household contributed according to their skills, and one of Rey’s specialties was fixing the rare imported mechanical items that came their way. That morning, her fingers moved carefully, precisely, to piece together the inner workings of a pocket watch, but her mind wandered back to the churchyard where she had met Kylo Ren before sunrise.

For her second lesson, he taught her the different ways ghosts could communicate, and as they had the day before, the things he told her seemed like a reminder of something she had forgotten. She practiced on the way home, but since she had settled down to work she found herself thinking more about the teacher than the lesson, struggling to remember that his orderly mind, so fond of classifications and hierarchies and so good at explaining them, belonged to the same man who rampaged across the colonies for several months terrifying settlers and soldiers alike. Rosamund’s reassurances aside, it seemed both wrong and dangerous to forget who he  _ really  _ was.

She had been sitting at the same window in September when she saw him and his  red-headed companion in the street, and she shivered again remembering that glimpse of the spirit riding pillion. Rey wondered how they came to be together - whether Kylo had sought out Snoke, or vice versa, or if they just  _ were _ the way Rosamund seemed to be with Rey.

Her reveries ended with the sound of Mrs. Solo calling out instructions. “...send back the rum and ask him whether there’s any flour to be had!”

“Good morning, my dear,” she continued as she joined Rey. “Old smugglers have a hard time learning new tricks. If you can believe it, Mr. Chewbacca turned up last night with a wagon load of contraband liquor and a box of oranges. We can make punch for our red-coated friends, apparently, but no bread.” She shook her head as she stepped up to the patch of sunlight where Rey was working. “Now, what are you working on today? Mending watches? Is there anything you can’t do?”

Rey had turned to return Mrs. Solo’s fond smile, but at her last words it faded, and she turned back to her work. There  _ had been _ one thing she could not do, the only thing Mrs. Solo had ever asked of her. 

Leia watched the girl’s mood shift and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “My dear, I must beg your pardon. We have not talked properly since you returned from seeking out my brother. We have all been tested sorely these past few months, and of course we sent you back out on urgent errands almost as soon as you returned! But now I can’t help but observe how low your spirits are...I hope you do not blame yourself for my brother’s stubbornness. I am sure you did all you could, more than anyone else would be able to do. I am remiss for letting you think otherwise for a single minute! Has it been bothering you all this time?”

Rey looked away, back down at her work, as she nodded. When she first returned to the city late in August, with the British forces drawing closer and the Continental Congress running away, the turmoil prevented her from confessing the full story of her failure. Afterward, as the chaos of Invasion faded into the new routine of Occupation, Rey kept herself busy and managed to avoid private conversations with Mrs. Solo and most everyone else. She had told parts of the story to Poe and Finn only after they cornered her, set her up with a seemingly bottomless tankard of ale, and refused to let her go until she talked. 

Now, after weeks spent imagining this conversation and months sure that it would never happen, Rey could not find the words to begin. Without deciding to, she blurted out, “Did you know? Before you sent me? I mean did you know that I was a ghost seeker?”

Mrs. Solo dropped gracefully into the chair beside Rey’s work table, weighing her answer. “I had a very strong suspicion, though it was impossible to be sure.”

“How? How did you know? Do you see them?”

“A few. At times.”

“The man? Who is here in this room with you sometimes?”

“Yes, Han -- the late Mr. Solo. And others. Your mother when you first arrived last spring, and the warrior maid who is still with you.”

Mrs. Solo leaned forward and continued, “So you  _ are _ a ghost seeker, then? How did you find them? Did my brother at least explain it to you?”

“He did explain it, as far as he could.” Rey thought back to the days she had spent camped near his cabin, waiting for some inspiration to strike and tell her how to persuade him to come away with her. “But I found out before I found him…”

Rey’s eyes returned to the window, “Do you remember the story we heard in the tavern? Before you sent me?”

Leia’s face went blank and hard, like a mask. “Of course.”

“It was all true.”

Eyes fixed on the bright street outside, Rey told Mrs. Solo the story of the slaughter in the marsh and her encounter with the wounded man who had drawn down the ghosts. Because she was not looking at Mrs. Solo’s face, she did not see the way her lips parted when she described the soldier’s injury, or the way her eyes filled with tears when she described his guardians. Only when Mrs. Solo murmured, “Ben,” did Rey look up to see Mrs. Solo’s head bent over folded hands, as if she were praying.

“Yes. Luke said he was his student before, when he was Ben. Did you know him as well?”

Mrs. Solo took a deep breath and reached for Rey’s hands. “That story can wait for another day. Oh, Rey, I had no idea you had been in such peril! And how overwhelming...oh, my dear. Don’t cry! Come, come.”

Tears were streaming down Rey’s face as she let herself remember her terror and anger and grief. But it was rage, not terror, that made her weep. She was remembering the moment when she learned that through all the years she had been alone, her mother’s ghost had been beside her, invisible and unknown. She still did not understand how that could be right, even in the topsy turvy world she had fallen into that summer morning. When Mrs. Solo rose and gathered her into her soft arms, Rey hid her angry face and tried to accept solace from this kind woman who was still not the mother she wanted.

Voices in the hall interrupted their embrace, and Mrs. Solo sat back as Rose and Finn hesitated in the doorway.

“Did she say yes?” Rose asked.

“Oh! It slipped my mind, but perhaps this is just the thing for you, my dear. Rose has been working to collect information from a certain British officer, a Captain Phasma, but she needs a chaperone and someone to serve as a distraction while she, well, charms the officer. We thought you would be perfect. It would mean going with her to the dance...dressed as a young lady.” 

Rey’s eyes went wide with fear. “I can’t pass for a lady! I hardly know how to walk in a dress any longer, and I don’t dance!”

Rose pleaded, “Rey, you are the only person we have that they won’t recognize, particularly in a dress, and I promise you it won’t be too complicated. You can sit or stand through most of the dances.”

Mrs. Solo raised one eyebrow. “I’m afraid she will have to learn enough to be passable. The whole point of a dance in an occupied city is to keep the officers entertained, and she will attract more notice if she refuses. No one is asking you to minuet! Finn, can you teach her an Allemande? And The Pilgrim. Anyone here can teach you that. And Rose can introduce you as her country cousin, which will excuse any number of missteps.”

Finn, next to her, spoke gently. “You can’t pass for a boy forever.”

“But a dance? Not a small one, either!” Rey argued. “Why can’t I start as a kitchen maid or...?”

“You are far too pretty to be wasted in the scullery! If we are to make the most of this Occupation we will need you in the ‘drawing room, my dear.” Taking her acceptance for granted, Leia went on. “Rose, please ask Mrs. Kalonia to come to me and have her bring the keys to the attic. Your first dress really should be made just for you, but I’m afraid there’s no money for fabric this month even if there were any to be had within a hundred miles! But there’s a trunk of my mother’s dresses I haven’t opened in years, and I am sure we will find something there to suit you.”

* * *

Kylo let himself in the front door, hoping for a hot dinner and a quiet night, but instead found two scarlet-coated officers slouching on his best chairs, drawn up before a small, steady fire.

“It’s too late for civil visiting, gentlemen.”

“How fortunate we’re not civil, then!” the redhead replied.

“Or gentlemen,” added the flaxen-headed figure next to him.

“Hux. Phasma. Truly. I’m spent. Unless there is an imminent battle it must wait.”

Phasma stood to face him, “Well, of a sort there  _ is _ .”

Hux rose, too. “I told them it was ridiculous, but Howe’s staff is insisting that they need your...skills.” Hux waved his fingers toward Kylo dismissively. “There’s an assembly Friday, for officers. To improve morale, of course. But perfect for spying - they want you to tell them who is there with malintent.”

“That may be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Kylo’s head began to ache.

“You’ll have a messenger from Howe if you decline.”

“He can send whomever he likes. He does not want me at a dance. Did you tell him I don’t read minds?”

“You knew about Phasma.”

“Anyone who’s seen Phasma’s fair jaw after a three-day campaign knows, Hux. But she fights too well for anyone to wish her sent home.”

“But, your duty…”

“Is this the time to remind you I’m not in service to the Crown, Hux? Good night.”

* * *

The third day after Christmas was a Sunday, and Kylo suggested they ride out of the city to visit a spot he remembered from a long-ago summer excursion. She had made good progress. Though she had been distracted and anxious about something the day before, she managed to call a ghost to her before they had parted ways; he planned to expand on that lesson in a place away from the crowded city, where they wouldn’t attract notice. He waited for her along the Wissahickon Road, and urged Silencer forward down the bank when he saw her trotting toward him mounted on her distinctive pinto.

As he rode beside the girl he could feel her reaching gently into the realm of ghosts, feeling who or what might be nearby. He felt her effervescent energy pause near him, and settled his mental shields to keep her from coming too close. She turned to look at him.

“I can feel it when you do that.”

He looked at her with a flicker of surprise before raising one eyebrow in skepticism.

“I can feel your energy change. It dulls, like you’ve thrown a cloak over it.” She turned away again and went back to exploring.

It had taken him a full year to be able to tell the difference between Skywalker’s deliberate barriers and the moments when his uncle was simply tranquil. As he thought about it, Kylo supposed that his own thoughts might just be louder than his former teacher’s.

Regardless of the reason for her perceptions, he couldn’t resist testing them further. He rifled through his memories of the girl for one full of emotions, something that would make it hard for her to miss. He went back to the very beginning, to the sight of her and Rosamund standing on the ridge above the battle, when he had drawn so strongly on his own darkness and let his conscious faculties fall away. He took himself back to those moments, remembering what he had seen and heard and smelled. How he had felt so full of power and rage and righteousness, and the way the sight of her shining like a beacon in the darkness had cut straight through the roiling darkness with which he shrouded himself.

She turned to him, eyes wide, saying nothing. He thought he saw fear on her face for an instant, but she did not flinch, and he felt her draw closer as he went on.

From the galvanic shock of seeing her, he moved his memories forward, working through the decision to turn and give chase, the way he had used his powers to shut out Snoke’s compulsion so that he could follow her and track her down. In remembering, he uncovered feelings he had not revisited since that night. He remembered the need to know who Rosamund was, but had forgotten the pull to the light, the hunger for it.

He stopped himself before the memory of finding her crouched in the underbrush. “You could follow that?”

She searched for the words to describe what she had perceived. “Just...emotions. The darkness...anger...hatred? No, something else…your power…” 

“What else? After the darkness?”

“With the anger...under it, there was something lighter. Hope? And want. Determination”

“Close enough.”

She slowed a bit, and a moment later he heard her ask from behind him. “Can you tell what I am thinking all the time?”

“I’d rather not answer that question.” He smirked back over his shoulder. A wave of the girl’s frustration and fear washed over him and he laughed out loud and slowed so she could draw up beside him again.

“Why would I give away what little advantage I have? Formulate your own hypothesis. Test it.”

“Hypothesis?”

“Your idea of what is happening. Based on what you observe,” he explained.

“Very well,” she muttered sullenly. Under her breath, he thought he heard her mutter, “Teachers!”

They had been riding at a walk for a bit less than an hour when he brought Silencer to a halt and looked around. It had been twenty-five years since he had last visited, and high summer. Newly cleared fields and bare trees changed the light, but he remembered the feel of the place. It reminded him of an old, old burial ground, layered deep with quiet ghosts. He found the path he was looking for heading off to the east, and they turned from the road.

“What is this? Why are there so many ghosts here?” the girl asked as they dismounted.

“I never learned that, but I had less training than you last time I was here. I remembered it as being particularly peaceful…” 

“It doesn’t feel peaceful to me.” She shivered.

“No. It doesn’t.” There was something else there that he did not remember, though he could not say whether it was a new presence or if he were newly sensitive to it. 

During his partnership with Snoke he had learned to recognize different types of darkness - a ghost murdered for the sake of greed felt very different than one killed in revenge, and innocent victims had a completely different signature than those who had committed their own crimes before they died. The new energy he felt was oily, like greed, and it accompanied the high buzz of slaughtered innocents and a nauseating pulse of self-righteousness. It was a familiar mixture, one he had come across in different permutations on every continent. 

“We should go.”

“What? Why? We just got here!”

“Quickly. I’ll explain, but go. Now,” he ordered sternly. He waited for her to mount up before kicking his horse forward, “Silencer, HA!”

Back on the Wissahickon road, they headed south again for a mile before Kylo slowed Silencer and turned the horse onto another side road. He loosened the reins and they continued at a walk. 

He turned to her to explain. “There are some places where ghosts accrete...they seem to drift there from other places. That feeling - would you recognize it again?”

She shuddered, “Yes.”

“Until you are confident, stay away from those places. They are unpredictable. Ghosts may not come to you there, but they won’t leave you alone, either. I don’t know why. You’ll find them all over the world. Human civilizations tend to avoid them - or build monuments on them. But we - people like us - are especially vulnerable there.”

She smiled at his seriousness. “Couldn’t you have protected us, then?”

“Perhaps. Probably...” He looked back at Rey and found Rosamund standing beside her pinto’s head, stroking the chestnut mane and looking hard at him. “But possibly not,” he finished.

“In any case, you need to learn how to send ghosts away now, and you would not have been able to do that there. This is a better spot.”

Once she had dismounted and hobbled the pinto, he asked, “Shall we start with Rosamund?”

Rosamund answered for her, “You shall not. It would be a waste of your time.”

“Why is that?”

Rosamund looked at him for a long moment. “I think you know, but I will answer your question when you have finished the lesson. Rey needs to learn today more than you do.” She moved off a little ways, and the girl turned to him, smiling impudently so that deep dimples appeared beneath the apples of her cheeks.

“So, let’s begin,” she smiled.

At the same time he said, “Rey,” eyes fixed on the dimple, which disappeared as her eyebrows raised in a question. “Your name. Rey. I had not known.”

Her legs bent awkwardly and she wobbled into an ungainly curtsey as the dimple reappeared. “At your service, my lord Ren.” 

Something rose up in him, something dark that urged him to correct her mocking address. What would she say if she knew his real names? Rosamund caught his eye and he batted the impulse away. Instead, he said repressively, “Enough. Now reach out.”

She dutifully closed her eyes and he watched the dimple fade again as her face relaxed into a meditative mood.

“Are you ready?”

She gave a short nod.

“Call a ghost to you, then. But be careful - something quiet.”

He felt her reaching out, her mind casting wider circles until she found something, someone. She beckoned silently, and he felt compelled to step closer before he caught himself. “Little witch,” he thought, and her eyes flew open. 

“Concentrate, then,” he admonished. He felt the ghost draw closer, a young woman whose family had buried her in a beloved spot overlooking the river. He felt Rey offer comfort, a passing warmth that the ghost had little interest in, though she hovered nearby in response to Rey’s command.

“Good. Now, ask her to go.”

“This seems very rude.”

“What?”   
  
“To make her come and go for no reason. What if I am interrupting?”

“She is here for eternity. Alone. You can be sure that you do not trouble her.”

“How do you know?”

“Fine. Ask her,” he sighed. What had he done to earn this impertinence? He had hoped her gratitude, if not her awe, might last the duration of their truce.

He felt Rey asking, and the ghost’s wan reply that she minded not at all, before Rey invited the ghost to leave again. It had been too easy. The ghost offered no resistance, and Rey would not have felt the compulsion she needed to push away something more forceful.

“Again. Something less quiet this time.”

She closed her eyes, but faced him still, one eyebrow raised in a challenge. The mesmerizing dimple reappeared. He shook his head, but could not still his mind enough to follow where she wandered. His eyes remained open, unable to cut off the sight of her charming smile, until a flicker of something across her brows broke his reverie. Something less passive, less quiet, was coming toward them.

Even before he had consciously absorbed the change, he opened his awareness to the realm just beyond the reach of his eyes and ears, tongue and skin. In her untested power, the girl had called down spectres from the place they had just abandoned. A mile was nothing to them, and she had only just learned how to call out to the ghosts. She did not have the experience to judge the distance or to soften her demand, so she called and they came. He felt the immensity of his mistake even as he threw out his own commands to stop them.

Still they came, wild and unhearing, restless and ready as any vengeful spirit he had ever summoned, in their tens and hundreds and thousands. Souls betrayed and enslaved, disregarded and trampled in some other man’s quest for life, security, wealth, glory. There were too many of them, and too close. They condemned Kylo with their fury, and he hesitated in the knowledge of his own sin.

He could do no more than reach for the girl, pulling her into him to shelter her from the onslaught. He pushed back with everything he had, but nothing slowed the ghosts rushing over them until a flash of silver sent all of them flying away. Rosamund stood above them, a sword raised to heaven, light streaming out in every direction from her terrible beauty. Kylo turned to hide his eyes from the brilliance, but the girl looked up at her guardian with awe, and in the silver light Rey’s face was so much like Rosamund’s - sculpted marble, severely beautiful, too perfect. When the light fell back, absorbed once more into the warrior’s dull silver tunic, Kylo and Rey remained in their tableau, she gazing up in wonder and he intent on Rey’s once-more-human features. He pulled her tighter into the breadth of his body and curved himself over and around her, the urge to protect still gripping him.

The cold air stilled around them. Only the rapid rushing pulse of their breath moved. Rosamund looked down. Rey saw her face and felt only her love. Kylo saw a terrible judgement there.

“You,” he panted, “are no ghost.”

“No.”

“Who, then? What?”

“Her guardian. Rey’s. As she is yours.”

“I have no guardians!”

“You fail to see them, boy. That does not mean they have not been there.”

“This child is my guardian?”

“That woman is, yes. Stop a minute, Ben. Reach for the truth of what I am telling you. You will know it.”

He looked at Rey then, stared into her eyes from a few inches away. He saw a frightened child there, hiding behind defiance, restless in his crushing grip.

“Let me go!”

“No, wait. Rey, wait.”

“I said…” she pushed him off and scrambled back, rising clumsily to her feet. 

“Rosamund said...wait…”

“Rosamund is  _ gone _ , and you were hurting me.”

“She said…”

“She can tell me herself. At home. I do not need you to tell me what my own guardian says. Stay back, please. Wait before you ride. I need...I need to go. Alone. Please?”

“I could not have known, Rey, how strong you are. Please, I did not mean…”

She shook him off, silently stripped her horse of his hobbles, and pulled herself into the saddle unaided. 

“Tomorrow? On Callowhill’s lane beneath Rush Hill? Rey, will you come?”

He could see tears on her face as she turned into the setting sun. She nodded, and a moment later she was gone. Kylo was left quite alone, with the echo of his own pleading for company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flypaper_Brain is a lovely human being AND the reason I have the courage to keep posting this stuff. Her comments and images and ideas have contributed to both the idea and the execution of this story in immeasurably valuable ways and I can't really thank her enough. Ever.


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